read children's books and watch children's shows if you want a 100% TEH EVUL antagonist. Also, it's not that the Assassins just don't want Templars in charge, they don't want ANYBODY to have much power as the Templars.

Media where both sides have good and bad to them is far more satisfying in my opinion. In case you've forgotten, that was kind of the point to the first Assassin's Creed. Garnier was using his potions and herbs to cure insanity, for example. All of the Templars did evil and good, except for Majd Addin who just wanted power. They forgot that in the ACII, all Templars were evil and later on Templars called it the darkest time for their organization. I much prefer it when both sides have more interesting facets and lore beyond THIS SIDE IS DEFINITELY GOOD AND THIS SIDE IS DEFINITELY EVIL.

I'm with you bro, Assassins for life.
I miss the old games, nothing agaisnt the new games (AC3 and AC4) But after revelations (or even brotherhood?) AC started loosing it's Awesome Assassins vibe, now they try showing us that the Templars aren't all thta bad, but I don't want that.

Dude, the only bad part about developing a bi-dimensional outlook on the Templars is that they first did it with Haytham, which was a character 10x more interesting than Connor, the bloody protagonist of the bloody game.

Otherwise, raising these kind of questions, no longer treating the subject in such absolute terms (Assassins = GOOD, Templars = BAD) is a sign of maturity & complexity, after all

When I started playing AC3 I was just like: Haythem is one Badass Maddafacka, and then Connor came along, I never thought I could become that dissapointed in a game.

And the fact that Haythem was a Templar...I had that feeling from the beginning, from seeing him sit around that table with those weird men, and I prayed it wasn't true...When Haythem was killed I almost threw my controler at the screen. I really can't stand AC3 story line, the controls may have become better (atleast that's what other people say, I'm still stuck with the AC2 controls) but the story was a disspointment.

This, a million times.
Sure, we always want to know who to root for, and we want to feel like we're making the right choice when we do so.
But I don't want that with the assassins. I don't agree with everything they do.
I want to feel like I'm making a good choice despite the consequences, and Haytham did too.
Assassin father, raised as one himself, rescued by a templar who in no way forced his beliefs on him and he did this thing where he thought for himself instead of what he was molded into. Second favourite character in the series, right after Ezio, not because I agree with his opinions, but because I admire his strength in making his life his.

Anyone else noticed that each successive AC setting involves being an Assassin (as in the group, not a killer) less than the last one?

Assassin's Creed: You are an Assassin from the very beginning.
Assassin's Creed II: You find out pretty early on about your Assassin heritage.
Assassin's Creed III: Part Native American, and later part Assassin. Spends time divided between fighting for the two.
Assassin's Creed IV: You're a pirate. The Assassins kind of borrow you, but you don't really give a shit until about five minutes from the end.

I am waiting for the day were you run around fully armoured and shot people in the face with a grenade launcher while battle screaming, instead of jumping from roffs and showing your hidden blade in their backs.
Assassins creed never was the sneakiest of games (as one would expect since it's a game about assassin) but they have lost the Assassins vibe more and more over the last two titles (ac3, ac4, haven't played unity)

The Altair side of things was really good, I think, but yeah, it was a bit rushed and unnecessary.

The first time I saw Ezio's family get hanged I was close to tears, but when I found Yusuf's corpse, I felt nothing. It wasn't that I didn't like him or didn't care, it was because he wasn't a very well developed character. The AC dev team have really lost their storytelling abilities.

Rushed and Unnecessaty indeed, it made me sad seeing the downfall the game made. Kind of like the developers tried to do a leap of faith with the franchise and landed on concrete.

I actually though you could save his family, I sat there with the controller in my hand and thought: S***, this is going to be one of those time thingis again where I have to run so that I don't f*** up the memory. When they got hanged I almost screamed, I had not expected that and was completly dumfounded, I sat there with the controller in my hand and paused the game and just freaked out.

I actually only started liking Yusuf because of a comic on deaviantart, it basically tells "his story" if it hadn't been for that, I would probably not have given a single f***. The only thing in game that made him slightly sympathic was that he sometimes had a funny line or two, that was it. I honestly liked Leonardo a thousand times more, and I missed him all the time while playing ACR. Atleast he had more personality